Butch + Sundance + Hollywood Nonsense = Great Toyline

First.....watch this:

Aren't you sorry missed that piece of cheese from 1979.

It is not quite the classic with Redford and Newman,

but it did yield some beautiful collectable toys.

It's 1979....the newly Toy Giant Kenner is buried in the Star Wars craze

and is looking for new licenses to make a killing on...I've got it!!!!

A crappy sequel to a classic movie that was made a decade later. Brilliant!

Now...to their credit....the western genre had been all the rage

in the sixties and early seventies....it just looks like Kenner

was a little late to the party and grabbed onto to whatever

property came along that they could force

western style toys down our little throats.

What came out of the mind of the folks at Kenner

was some really nice looking figures and horses

with good articulation and fun action features for the time.

The line consist of 5 figures with 7 points of articulation.

Each comes with a gun and nifty button on their backs

to make them quick style draw their gun out of their holsters.

The packaging has some of my favorite card art from any action figure line.

A great western feel that was very well done by Kenner.

Th figures vaguely look like the actors from the film

and are just generic enough to stand apart from the cheesy movie

and feel like they are their own historic line of toys.

My favorite piece in this little line is the Western Cafe playset.

It is taken from the Mos Eisley cantina mold from

the Vintage Star Wars line and has a really cool westen feel.

It come with a cardboard backdrop of the cafe

and a cardboard cutout of the bartender.

This is a very difficult playset to come by and was released

at be end of the line when Kenner was trying to expand this line

and merge it with a more historical character based line called "The Real West."

This line did not receive retailer support

and was not put into production past the prototype stage.

See Kevin Lentz's 3 3/4 inch archive for more details.

As you can see, the figures look great in the playset

and are ready for a little showdown with Marshall Lefors.

Here is a shot of the back on the packaging

minus the playset with great descriptions of all the characters.

The only thing I am missing is the Mint Wagon.

It too is rare and hard to find complete.

Overall a great classic line from a toy company at the top of their game.

Of course they later used the molds and the figure styles

for their very popular Indiana Jones line from 1981

The line is a somewhat compatiable

with the other Western lines of the time.

Empire's Legends of the West are a little bit bigger.

And the Gabriel Lone Ranger and Zorro lines are a little smaller.

But, go ahead and crowd all your figures

in this cafe and have a rootin' tootin' good time!